a knitter's child

 warm and cozy baby Bridget, wrapped up in handknit love

how quickly newborns move from sweet sleepiness to bright-eyed alertness

The baby surprise jacket was made by one of the gals in my knitting circle (thank you, Sam!), and I knit the blanket using yarn from the mill-end sale at Lorna's Laces, which is just a few blocks from our house here in Chicago.

pattern: baby chalice blanket, by Karen S. Lauger

yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted, Monkeyshines, 2 skeins

needles: US 9 (5.5 mm) Clover bamboo circs

my ravelry project page

yarnalong:

I'm reading The Artful Parent and feeling woefully inadequate. No knitting at present (soon, I hope!), but I'm crocheting the edging on my long-neglected rosie posie granny square afghan:

fo: Bridget Linnea

Welcome to the world, Bridget Linnea

 8 pounds, 3 oz., 21 inches of sweet little baby

February Finishing Frenzy, part I

The Chicago forecast calls for some serious snow!  I'm hoping for a snow day tomorrow -- sipping hot cocoa, snuggling with kitties, and going for a walk across the Chicago River sound like just the ticket.

I hereby declare this month February Finishing Frenzy -- time to finish up languishing projects, weave in ends, sew on buttons, and clear out the knitting basket. I'm in the mood to be productive and revel in small victories.

February Finishing Frenzy, project #1

pattern: High Tide Baby Blanket (free!), by Heather Dixon

yarn: Knit Picks Simply Cotton Worsted

needles: US 9 Knit Picks Harmony interchangeable circular

my ravelry project page

notes:

The pattern was very fun to knit, as the chevron pattern is a great way to play with colors. It went quickly due to lots of knitting time in the car and while "watching" football. Weaving in all the ends was a huge pain and took a lot of time, so I'm not sure I'd knit it again.

The yarn was fine -- it's fairly soft and it's not as fragile as the organic cotton from Blue Sky Alpacas or Lion Brand. Simply Cotton falls on the thin side of worsted, unlike the other two. I used maybe 2/3 of each skein of yarn. Here are the colors:

• marshmallow
• dogwood heather
• green tea heather
• wave heather
• golden heather
• haze heather

winter in the city

Scenes from a wintry walk:

an unexpected pop of color.

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city streets frosted with snow

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A new knitting project on the needles (so many babies on the way this year!):

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Tasty orange and dark chocolate buttermilk scones fresh from the oven:

stateside again

Sorry for the blog silence, but Paul and I were off on holiday in France!  We spent a week in the Loire valley, sipping wine, visiting chateaux, and spending time with family, then a few days in Paris seeing the sights!  Having a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast today was a real downer after so many lovely mornings of pain au chocolat. :-)  Better for the waistline, though.

Here's Paul rockin' the plaid at the Arc de Triomphe. I got to trot out my terrible French, and it did actually improve (hey, I took 8 weeks of French 7 years ago, and I can struggle through journal articles, so I didn't expect too much from myself).

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There's a pretty major backlog of knitting projects to photograph, blog, and ravel.  Here's the first of many --  Hemlock Ring, from my mini KAL with Barefoot Rooster: 

Kylie looks a little surprised at the woolly beast next to her.  This was a joy to knit despite the hot weather this summer, and the end result is so snuggly.  I can't wait to curl up under it with a mug of hot apple cider and a good book.

Pattern: Hemlock Ring, by Jared Flood

Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool, 2.3 skeins, natural

Needles: US 10.5 circs (magic loop at first)

my Ravelry project page

Notes:
I knit the larger size, and it's nice and cozy, perfect for fully covering your lap. Really quite fun and surprisingly quick to knit.  Next time I'd switch to a larger cable for the last third of the blanket, as it was kind of crunched up on my needles. As usual, the Eco Wool softened up after a good soak in Eucalan. I blocked it lightly, not overdoing it with the pins.

Yikes, I can't believe it's mid-September already.  So much to do! Remind me not to go on long trips at this time of year again.

hemlock amoeba?

Hemlock Ring is looking more like an amoeba now, or perhaps a jellyfish.  Thanks to yet another heat wave, I've been holing up in the downstairs rec room (AKA the man cave) and knitting while drinking endless glasses of iced tea.

I used the magic loop technique with a 40" cable rather than DPNs to start, which worked great. At some point it just slid out of magic loop and I switched to regular knitting in the round.  At this point I'd love to switch to a longer cable, but apparently I don't own one!  Something to add to the next Knit Picks order.  I'm using stitch markers between each feather-and-fan repeat, which is super helpful now that there are a bazillion stitches on the needle.

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The postman delivered one last round of yarn for the stripy crochet blanket.  I refuse to buy any more yarn for this project, and I don't want to calculate how many skeins have already gone into this thing.  I do love the ice cream colors, though, and it's absolutely addicting to make.  With any luck it will fit our queen size bed! 

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I caved and bought a double-walled iced coffee travel cup from Starbucks, and it has turned out to be a great purchase! I usually just fill it with homemade iced coffee and tea; it's even perfect for toting around the house because condensation doesn't build up on the outside.

socratic

Hemlock Ring in progress.  I learned Emily Ocker's circular cast-on via this tutorial yesterday morning, and it's very neat!  The blanket's speeding along so far, thanks to a fresh crop of Miss Marple episodes on the DVR.  

Julia McKenzie is quite good, isn't she?  Not too namby-pamby.  The production values on the last two seasons of Miss Marple and Poirot on Mystery have been such an improvement -- striking camera angles, great sets, colors that pop.  Very visual in a way that the old ones simply weren't.

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I've been racing through books lately.  I just don't feel like myself when I don't make some time to read novels.  There's something valuable about reading fiction that helps me approach problems from different angles and consider other points of view.  Two highlights:

The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
Post WWII, a country doctor befriends the Ayres family at Hundreds Hall.  Landed gentry, the Ayres are struggling to keep up a crumbling old pile, and the financial and emotional strains, as well as their increasing isolation from the social circle in which they once flew, are getting to them.  Waters reinvents the Gothic novel, pitting logic and science against emotion.  The real thing to watch here is the narrator, though.  Unlike Waters' other novels, the plot is very linear, building slowly.

Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
Born from an illicit union between a nun and a brilliant but emotionally stunted surgeon, twins Marion and Shiva Stone grow up in a cross-cultural household in Ethiopia, raised by doctors at Missing Hospital.  This compelling story about family, love, and betrayal is set in a tumultuous time in African history, and the setting really shapes the book.  It may sound a little melodramatic, but it's a great read.

dispatch from box island

Boxes, boxes everywhere. I listened to an NPR piece about hoarders yesterday while I was packing for our upcoming move, and it hit a little too close to home. Books! Yarn! Cookbooks! Tea! Yikes...

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What's keeping me sane right now:
- Nightingale Wood, by Stella Gibbons (who wrote Cold Comfort Farm, one of my all-time favorite books and movies). I'm enjoying it, though it's not nearly as witty as CCF. Perfect for the Anglophile, though.

- a new (enormous) crochet project, the so-called "stripy dog blanket" from The Cool Girl's Guide to Crochet (terrible title, dumb cover, but cute patterns). Perhaps a better name would be "stripy human blanket"? ;-)

I'm using six shades of Lion Brand Nature's Choice Organic Cotton -- dusty sage, dusty blue, strawberry, blueberry, almond, walnut, and pistachio. Mmm... doesn't that sound delicious? I love when the strawberry, walnut, and almond colors coincide, as it looks just like Neapolitan ice cream. The yarn is soft and cushy, probably destined to pill, and it's going to be a very heavy blanket. I'm using a J hook, and it's just half double crochet, changing colors every row.

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in the kitchen:
Peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! You couldn't squeeze too many more good things into those, could you? I found the recipe on someone's blog, but for the life of me I can't find it now. It's adapted from this recipe, with a few variations:

- skip the eggs and substitute 2 T. flax seeds + 6 T. water, stirred together
- add 1 C. chocolate chips at the end

I used all butter rather than 1/2 shortening, as shortening kind of skeeves me out.

A couple more cookie recipes calling out to me:
- white chocolate and pistachio sugar cookies
- hazelnut chocolate chip cookies

preparing for the next onslaught of new babies

When you hit your early 30s, it begins to seem as if babies are lurking behind every corner, ready to pop up anywhere, anytime! I'm working on some projects for the next round of my friends' wee new arrivals:

Pattern: Hip to Be Square Blanket, by Jennifer Braico

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky, color #17007, 7? skeins
Needles: Clover US 10.5 bamboo circs
~ on Ravelry ~

Notes:

Quite a few skeins of the Cashmerino Chunky had knots. Boo! It's a soft, squishy, cozy yarn nevertheless. 71 yds per skein means a lot of joins and ends to weave in.

Easy pattern. The 4-stitch applied i-cord edging looks nice, but it’s not my favorite thing to do. I checked out both tutorials recommended by the pattern designer, among others. The k3, sl1, k1, psso method worked best for me.

When working parallel to the blanket for the i-cord border, I picked up 3 sts for every 4. When working perpendicular, I picked up every stitch.

I would recommend going up a needle size or two for the i-cord edging. Also, don’t pull too tight, or it ends up distorting the blanket.

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So I had a good amount of Cashmerino Chunky leftover from the blanket, plus a bunch of partial skeins and odd bits from my beloved giant granny square. Wouldn't it be great to use up all of this Cashmerino? Maybe with some granny squares for a stroller blanket?

If you're a long-term Caffeinated Yarn reader, you know exactly where this is going... Using up stash yarn never goes as smoothly as I anticipate:

Yep, while I do have enough dark pink for the borders, I'm out of contrasting yarn with two squares left to finish:
Typical. However, a couple of Ravelers are coming to the rescue! Knitters truly are the nicest people.

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You'll never guess what Colin Meloy (of Decemberists fame) and Carson Ellis are up to! Carson (a knitter, of course) has blogged about it here.

languish no longer, my pretties!

My March and April knitting has consisted of finishing up a bunch of old projects that have been languishing far too long. It doesn't make for the most fun knitting (or blogging, for that matter), but it's great to get these things off the needles and get my knitting corner organized for our upcoming move.

Case in point: an Easy Peasy Squares Baby Blanket. I finally ordered one last skein of yarn to finish this up!

Pattern: Easy Peasy Squares Baby Blanket, by Kelly McCraw ~ on ravelry
Yarn: Missions Falls 1824 wool, 7 skeins ~ cornflower
Needles: Clover US 10 bamboo circular

Notes:
Easy pattern, great squooshy yarn! I tweaked the numbers and pattern repeats a bit. The garter stitch edging does pull in a bit, but blocking helps. I think "cornflower" is a misnomer for this color. A real cornflower looks like this:
Curious... Then again, my color knowledge is largely based upon the giant Crayola boxes of my childhood, so what do I know. Crayola is most definitely a significant cultural phenomenon, though, as otherwise millions would have no idea what "burnt sienna" looks like.

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Blue-green hues are really rocking my world lately, though, as I've also cast on for a Buttercup top in this shade of Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy:

It doesn't look too much yet, as it's knit on size 4 needles, and I can't overdo it since the hemp/cotton/modal blend is a little tough on the hands and wrists!

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Also in the "finish the frack up department"...

I'm following this tutorial to apply an i-cord border to another baby blanket that has been languishing for months, waiting for just this very step.
It went very well on the bound-off edge, but working on the next side is making me crazy! Also, it would have been wise to go up a needle size or two for the edging. Keeping it loose prevents the edging from pulling too much.

more handknits in action

As the temperature plunges, more handknit gifts are seeing action! It warms the cockles of my heart, I tell you.

My friend sent me a photo of her little girl snuggled up in the Diagonal Stripes Blanket that I knit. (details on Ravelry)

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One of the Owl Tuques is also seeing some serious use! I knit this one for Paul's coworker's little guy.
I knit the 6-month size, which apparently works OK for a 2-month old with the brim turned up. The Swish Bulky is very soft and cushy. I've knit 3 of these already, and I'll most definitely be making even more.

over the river and through the woods...

Paul and I made the trek to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. It was unseasonably warm and sunny, which was a delight. We managed to squeeze in visits with family and friends, a baby shower, a trip to the Happy Gnome in St. Paul (great selection of microbrews from the Midwest), and a walk along the mighty Mississippi in St. Paul. So pretty despite the lack of foliage!

view from Mississippi River Blvd. in St. Paul

Plus we stopped at State St. Brats in Madison for a Spotted Cow and cheese curds. That's a lot to do in just a few short days! All that time in the Jeep was good for my knitting mojo, although my leg muscles feel as if they've atrophied from too much sitting.

Pattern: Upside-Down Daisy, by Susan B. Anderson (rav)
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran (pink), less than 1 ball
oddments of Lion Brand Cashmere Blend (cream) and Cashmerino DK (green)
Size: 6 months
Needles: US 6 needles for the hat
US 5 for the green stem (I used a DK weight yarn to make it less bulky)
US 7 for the cream-colored petals

Notes:
This little hat reminds me of flower fairies! The hat itself is very quick to knit, and the pattern's very clear but rather fiddly. Only 5 petals fit on the hat (rather than the 6 specified in the pattern), and applying them is a pain in the neck. I made each of the petals a few rows longer, a fairly common mod on Ravelry. The finished product is darling, and I'm looking forward to giving it to my friends' new baby girl next Sunday.
Babies are popping up everywhere, by the way. My friends are reproducing at an alarming rate, and I'm hard-pressed to keep up with the baby knits!

I had sworn off knitting baby blankets a while back. They take too long, they use so much yarn, they get pretty boring... you know the drill. Well, apparently I fell off the wagon, as I'm almost done with one:

I'm using Jennifer Braico's Hip to Be Square pattern (rav) and (many, many) balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Chunky. It's soft, squishy, and nice to knit, but most balls have a knot or two, plus the yardage is pretty skimpy. All that's left is the applied i-cord edging and weaving in a million ends.

One more photo from Minnesota:

Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis

black bean festival

When I announced to Paul and our friend Andrea that I was going to the Midwest Fiber & Folk Art Fair this past weekend, they were stunned. Yeah... it turns out that regular people think of dietary fiber, not wool, when they hear "fiber." Paul then unofficially proclaimed it the Black Bean Festival. Muggles!

One of the highlights...
So cute! I went with a few girls from my knitting circle, and a great time was had by all, especially at the Briar Rose booth... talk about swoon-worthy fiber.

(L) Sea Pearl (merino/tencel), (R) Celebration (merino/bamboo), plus the After Hours Shawl pattern

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Kylie's in love with my now-complete Hap Blanket. See how she's cuddling up to it?
I've even seen her burrow under it and hide behind it. I haven't washed and blocked it yet, since I'm wondering if that's some of the cat appeal, and I'm enjoying the show too much.

Pattern: Hap Blanket, by Ysolda Teague (from Whimsical Little Knits)
Yarn: Cascade Ecological Wool, Natural (1.25 skeins) and Coffee (.25 skeins)
Needles: Clover US 11 bamboo circs

Notes:
Hmmm... I wish I liked this better. The yarn is great -- very lofty and soft, marvelous price and yardage, wonderful natural colors. I usually love Ysolda's patterns, but this one isn't my favorite. There are serious errata. Row 5 should be P (not K); more significantly, the last page of the pattern doesn't seem to be necessary and was ceremoniously disregarded by me. The written-out instructions are rather annoying -- they often refer back to other rows that themselves refer back to yet more rows.

Feather and fan is usually my absolute favorite stitch pattern to knit, but here it's a pain. Switching colors after YOs is nearly impossible to do well. I don't like knitting F&F in the round on those big needles, either.

The blanket is an odd size. It would make a great (if slightly large) baby blanket, but I knit it up in hand-wash-only wool. It kind of covers your lap. It would work best as a decorative item over the back of a chair. Or as a cat blanket, apparently.

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Finishing up the Hap Blanket (as well as a scarf that I'll save for another post) sparked a bout of cast-on-itis! First up, a Milkweed Shawl:
I'm using Impulse of Delight's Superwash Merino/Silk in "Aubergine." Ashley used this yarn for a beautiful Ishbel a while back, and I couldn't resist the allure of those gorgeous inky blues. Yes, yes... usually aubergine means purple, but the color makes me so happy that I won't complain. It has a lovely sheen, and it's a nice, springy 2-ply. I have found a few odd spots in this skein though.

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Also, since my friends are procreating at an alarming rate, a raglan baby sweater in Cashmerino, inspired by Lolly's two cute versions.
This needs to be done for an early August baby shower, which I don't think will be a problem. I'm subbing YO raglan increases:

knit to within 1 st of marker, YO, K1, slip marker, K1, YO

homecoming

I'm back from a whirlwind trip to Minnesota. Some highlights...
- spending time up north on Roosevelt Lake (NW of L. Mille Lacs)
- visiting a new cidery in Stockholm, WI -- Maiden Rock Cidery. Their Honeycrisp hard cider is delicious!
- seeing Public Enemies -- the scenes of Billie's apt. along the El tracks were shot in my back alley! I enjoyed the movie; that Johnny Depp can really act. It's a pretty straight portrayal -- not overly stylized, as many gangster movies are.

Strangely enough, I didn't knit much on my trip. Staying at my parents' house causes me to revert back to my teenage self -- lots of reading and listening to the Smiths.

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Pattern: Moderne Baby Blanket by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne

Needles: Clover US 8 bamboo circs
Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 Cotton, many skeins
(305 lemongrass, 207 chili, 102 ivory, 400 fog, 209 maize, 401 chicory, 403 sky)

Notes: Great pattern - very fun and easy to knit. It's a yarn-eater, so be forewarned. I started off using leftover skeins, so I didn't follow the number of rows in the pattern -- I just knit until I ran out of yarn or thought it looked good. This blanket was a great opportunity to play with color. I hate doing actual colorwork, so this was perfect for me. Mission Falls is great to work with -- not too much wrist/hand fatigue considering that it's 100% cotton.

Time to pop this in the mail to Colorado!

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My cousin adopted a new cat while I was home last week. Such a cutie. See those paws?
Yep, he's polydactyl. He looks like he's wearing big mittens. :-)

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The Hap Blanket is almost done... I'm still loving the Eco Wool.
We've reached the amorphous blob stage where it's all bunched up on the circular needles.

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In the kitchen

I whipped up a Lemony Zucchini Goat Cheese pizza for dinner last night. Yum! I substituted thyme for basil, and I added a sprinkling of shredded Parmesan. Next time I'd cut back on the lemon juice a bit. I used Smitten Kitchen's simplest pizza dough recipe, too, but I made it in the breadmaker on the "dough" setting, which worked perfectly.